Alexander Beihammer

A Transcultural Formula of Rule: The Byzantine-Frankish Discourse on the Formation, in: G. Christ, F.-J. Morche, R. Zaugg, W. Kaiser, S. Burkhardt, A. D. Beihammer, Union in Separation: Diasporic Groups and Identities in the Eastern Mediterranean (1100-1800) (Viella: Rome, 2015).

Τhe conquest of Cyprus by King Richard Ι's crusading forces in May 1191 and the subsequent transfer of the island to the dethroned King of Jerusalem, Guy of Lusignan, 1 in the eyes of Byzantine contemporaries were nothing short of cruel and arbitrary acts of violence lacking any sort of political legitimacy and legality. The contemporary historian Niketas Choniates states that the English King, " by leaving troops on Cyprus, claimed the island as if it were already his own " , while upon his departure from Palestine " he donated Cyprus, as if it were his own land, to the lord and King of Jerusalem, so that he might henceforth live there keeping a truce in his wars after losing his own lordship and so that he might rule over the Cypriots as if they were allotted by him to the Lord's Sepulcher and as if the island were annexed to the territories of Palestine ". 2 Likewise, the Cypriot ascetic Neophytos the Recluse commented that the King, " this villain, though he did not achieve anything against his like-minded opponent Saladin, he achieved one thing, that is to sell the land to the Latins for two hundred pounds of gold. Therefore the wailing was great and the smoke coming from the north was unbearable ".

The Ottoman expansionist policy during the reign of Sultan Mehmed II (1451–81) not only inaugurated a centuries-long period of Turkish supremacy in southeastern Europe, but also brought about a total change in the balance of power among the major Muslim states in the Levant and the Near East. The subjugation of the Grand Karaman of Konya and other minor Turcoman dynasties, and the violent clashes with Uzun Hasan, the ruler of the Akkoyunlu confederation in Eastern Anatolia and Iran, in the years 1464–74, brought the Ottoman state into a direct confrontation with the Mamluk sultanate of Cairo. Naval activities on the part of the Mamluks and the Turkish emirs off the southern coast of Anatolia during the 1440s and the 1450s, papal appeals warning of imminent Turkish attacks on Rhodes and Cyprus and, of course, the multifold threats and dangers emanating from the Ottoman-Venetian war of the years 1463–79 clearly illustrate the extremely precarious situation which the Kingdom of Cyprus was facing during these years. At the same time the kingdom was undergoing one of its major internal crises caused by the conflict and ensuing civil war between Queen Charlotte and James the Bastard, who appealed to both Christian and Muslim powers for support. This article investigates the role of the kingdom of Cyprus within the network of Muslim-Christian diplomacy in the period in question, mainly focusing on the role of the Mamluk sultanate during the Cypriot civil strife, the kingdom's involvement in Venetian attempts to create a broad anti-Ottoman alliance with the principalities of Anatolia and Uzun Hasan, and ideological aspects of the contacts between the Cypriot royal court and Venice's Muslim allies.

The arrival of the Seljuk Turks in Anatolia forms an indispensable part of modern Turkish discourse on national identity, but Western scholars, by contrast, have rarely included the Anatolian Turks in their discussions about the formation of European nations or the transformation of the Near East. The Turkish penetration of Byzantine Asia Minor is primarily conceived of as a conflict among empires, sedentary and nomadic groups, and religious and ethnic entities. This book proposes a new narrative, which begins with the waning influence of Constantinople and Cairo over large parts of Anatolia and the Byzantine-Muslim borderlands, as well as the failure of the nascent Seljuk sultanate to supplant them as a leading supra-regional force. In both Byzantine Anatolia and regions of the Muslim heartlands, local elites and regional powers came to the fore as holders of political authority and rivals in incessant power struggles. Turkish warrior groups quickly assumed a leading role in this process, not because of their raids and conquests, but because of their intrusion into pre-existing social networks. They exploited administrative tools and local resources and thus gained the acceptance of local rulers and their subjects. Nuclei of lordships came into being, which could evolve into larger territorial units. There was no Byzantine decline or Turkish triumph, but rather, the driving force of change was the successful interaction between these two spheres.

in: Philip Gelez and Gilles Grivaud (eds.), Les conversions à l'Islam en Asie Mineure, dans les Balkans et dans le monde musulman. Comparaisons et perspectives, École française d'Athènes, Mondes Méditerranéens et Balkaniques 7 (Athens, 2016), pp. 77-108.

Das gesamte Schriftgut, das aus der Korrespondenz zwischen dem byzantinischen Kaiserhof und Adressaten des arabisch-islamischen Kulturkreises hervorgegangen ist, kann für den modernen Betrachter nur noch über eine Zwischenstufe sekundärer ...

The present study deals with the oldest surviving written reactions of Byzantine and Christian Oriental authors to the emergence of the Seljuk Turks in the Middle East and Asia Minor, mainly focusing on recognizable elements of a preexisting collective knowledge concerning ...